Nearshore

Undisturbed, Prehistoric Sand Dune Discovered at MSU

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(NY) Treehugger – The sprawling campus of Michigan State University takes in 5,200 acres. There are trees that shade the landscape and a Red Cedar River that runs through it. Researchers have just found a 16,000- to 20,000-year-old sand dune on the campus, too, beneath a grove of pine trees. The dune, between buildings called Demonstration Hall and Munn Ice Arena, is one of the most southerly located that researchers have ever seen in Michigan. More

Water

Algae warning system tried out in Lake Erie

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(OH) The Toledo Blade – Staying one step ahead of algae. That’s the goal of a $269,500 initiative the federal government launched this summer for Lake Erie’s western basin, the warmest and shallowest part of the Great Lakes.  

Stretching approximately from Monroe to Sandusky, Lake Erie’s western basin also is the area hit hardest by farm and street runoff. More

Echo

Editorial: Wetland protection failed

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(MI) Traverse City Record Eagle-  There are a dozen variations — “shoot first and ask questions later,” “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission,” etc. We’ve heard them all. In some building and developer circles the intent is the same even if the wording is a little different; it could be “bulldoze now, get a permit if you have to.”That’s pretty much what happened in Elk Rapids about a decade ago. Developer Bill Clous started carving up a wetlands area to build a subdivision. He had permits from Antrim County and local officials but after environmentalists raised the roof, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grudgingly agreed that the wetland in question was tied to nearby Lake Michigan, which meant Clous needed a federal permit.

Echo

Judge Rejects Approval of Biotech Sugar Beets

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(NY) The New York Times – A federal judge has ruled that the government failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of genetically engineered sugar beets before approving the crop for cultivation in the United States. The decision could lead to a ban on the planting of the beets, which have been widely adopted by farmers. In a decision issued Monday, Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said that the Agriculture Department should have done an environmental impact statement. He said it should have assessed the consequences from the likely spread of the genetically engineered trait to other sugar beets or to the related crops of Swiss chard and red table beets.  More

Echo

Wheeling wetlands dispute on settlement track

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(IL) Chicago Tribune – In July, the Chicago District of the Corps found that village-owned wetlands west of Mark Smith’s Prairie Park condominium development at 700 N. Wolf Rd. had been filled improperly. Smith and village officials agree Smith’s company, Smith Family Construction Inc., did the filling without authorization or approval from village officials.”We encroached on some village property slightly,” Smith said last week of the work he said his company mistakenly did on the land east and south of the Rogers Memorial Diversion Channel that takes water to the Des Plaines River. More

Echo

Scientists to complete sanctuary sinkhole research

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(MI) The Alpena News – A group of scientists who have been studying three Lake Huron sinkholes within the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary will go on the lake today to gather geological data to wrap up more than a year of research. During the summer of 2008, a group consisting of scientists from varying scientific disciplines traveled to Alpena to begin gathering data as part of a research project funded through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration. More

Echo

Michigan receives $1 million to bolster smart grid projects

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(MI) Bay City Times – The Michigan Public Service Commission is receiving more than $1 million in federal stimulus money to help implement smart grid technology projects in Michigan. The money is part of $144 million announced this week by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a keynote speech to the Gridweek 2009 Conference in Washington, D.C. More

Echo

Pavement to Parks

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(NY) The New York Times – Last Friday, cities and towns throughout the world celebrated Park(ing) Day, an event created to bring awareness to the importance of using and enjoying public space. Witnessing all those swaths of pavement transformed into plant-filled community gathering spaces (Streetfilms.org has a short film of San Francisco’s Park(ing) Day) got me thinking about – given the tangential way my brain works – the process of land-banking. More

Echo

Local-food advocates point out hidden costs in groceries

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(OH) Cleveland Plain Dealer – Despite the clamor for local food, only about 1 percent of the food eaten in Ohio is grown in Ohio. And of the 14 million acres farmed in our state, 8 million produce corn and soybeans. Those crops are subsidized by the government, shipped out of state to make processed food, then shipped back for sale. Mary K. Holmes gave those statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to those attending a forum Saturday, Sept. 19, sponsored by the Innovative Farmers of Ohio, a small-farm support group.

Echo

Farmers defend Great Lakes crops from deer

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By Sarah Coefield
Coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 23, 2009

Countless deer descend on crops in the Great Lakes region, leaving in their wake torn corn silks, leafless soybeans, devastated orchards and millions of dollars in damage.  It’s a drop in the bucket for the agriculturally rich region but nonetheless painful for individual farmers. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s a minor amount, but it can be your entire crop,” said Paul Zimmerman, the public affairs executive director for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. While damage may be little noticed on large farms, it can be devastating for small operations where deer can quickly wipe out a field of young soybeans. “Welcome to raising crops in Mother Nature,” Zimmerman said.